Sunday, January 1, 2017

Vivitar 40mm f1.7 from 35ES

I got this Vivitar 35ES rangefinder, rumored to be the same camera as the Minolta Hi-Matic S7 II, to see how hard it is to convert the lens which has Automatic aperture control to be used on the Sony A7.  The aperture is not manually adjustable, obviously, but it is not controlled by a geared motor like modern lenses are.  The aperture is still mechanical and I was able to link the aperture to the ISO Shutter Speed ring on the lens. Not perfect as there is no indexing, but it allows the aperture to be controlled.

Tried it out today and I am very happy with how it renders images.  More to come.

Vivitar 40mm f1.7 converted to Sony E-Mount

Delicious bokeh - Vivitar 40mm f1.7 & Sony A7

5 comments:

  1. happy new year! nice shot. inspiring!

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    1. Happy New Year Emmanuel! Wish you good health and a prosperous 2017!

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  2. Very nice Yu-Lin.
    I have the Minolta, and was wondering I would go about using the aperture.
    Do you have any photos of this link that you were able to do.
    I still have to take the lens off the camera, which still works, so I am hesitating, but want to use the lens on digital.
    Once done, the body of the camera will go on the shelf with the few that I have been able to convert lenses from.
    The camera bodies still look good, and if I really wanted to, I could still put the lenses back on them, for display.


    Thanks, and,


    Happy New Year to you

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    1. Thanks Sam. I will do a write up on the Vivitar in an upcoming post. Most of the camera bodies from conversion are pretty much taken apart for the screws and other parts. I have too many of them to keep around :)

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  3. Hi Yu-Lin Chan,
    strange i searched the whole www for a conversion if this lens,
    but i forgot to search for its clones, like revue 400SE or your Vivitar.

    http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1371136/0#13064365

    thats what i did so far. may i ask you how did you do the Helicon?

    Regards for Germany
    Reinhard

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